Authorities say a drug overdose is suspected in the death of former Weezer bass player Mikey Welsh, who was found in aChicago hotel room Saturday afternoon.

Welsh, 40, was found unresponsive on the floor after failing to check out of his room at the Raffaello Hotel in the 200 block of East Delaware Place at 1 p.m. Saturday, according toChicago Police News Affairs Officer Laura Kubiak. Hotel staff found him.

Welsh was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:50 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy is scheduled for later day, but authorities said narcotics are suspected as the cause of death.

Kubiak said police are conducting a death investigation.

Weezer is in town for theChicago RiotFest tonight, according to the band’s web page, and Welsh was expected to catch their show.

Welsh, 40, of Burlington, Vt., performed with Weezer from 1998 to 2001, leaving after suffering a nervous breakdown, according to the band’s website. He eventually established himself in a second career as a painter.

“I’m taking a break from music,” he told MetroWest Daily News in 2002. “I really feel the need to reinvent myself and move on, and I couldn’t be happier painting. Music is still an important part of my life, but I really have no desire to actually play it.”

The group’s “Weezerpedia” page carried a note this morning that read, “As many of you may have heard, Mikey Welsh has passed away. “The news was announced via his official Facebook page earlier in the evening. Understanding that many here are grieving, Weezerpedia has created a digital eulogy page for Mikey Welsh where fans can post stories, pictures, or thoughts. R.I.P. Mikey.”

Scott Shriner, the band’s current bassist, posted a short note to his Twitter account at about 12 a.m. Sunday.

“Really bummed about Mikey. My heart goes out to his family and friends. Such a talent… he made a special mark on the world with his art.

Steven P. Jobs, the charismatic technology pioneer who co-founded Apple Inc. and transformed one industry after another, from computers and smartphones to music and movies, has died. He was 56.

Apple announced the death of Jobs — whose legacy included the Apple II, Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad.

“We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today,” Apple said. “Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”

He had resigned as chief executive of Apple in August, after struggling with illness for nearly a decade, including a bout with pancreatic cancer in 2003 and a liver transplant six years later.

Few public companies were as entwined with their leaders as Apple was with Jobs, who co-founded the computer maker in his parents’ Silicon Valley garage in 1976, and decades later — in a comeback as stunning as it seemed improbable — plucked it from near-bankruptcy and turned it into the world’s most valuable technology company.

Jobs spoke of his desire to make “a dent in the universe,” bringing a messianic intensity to his message that technology was a tool to improve human life and unleash creativity.

“His ability to always come around and figure out where that next bet should be has been phenomenal,” Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, the high-tech mogul with whom Jobs was most closely compared, said in 2007.

In the annals of modern American entrepreneur-heroes, few careers traced a more mythic sweep. An adopted child in a working-class California home, Jobs dropped out of college and won the title “father of the computer revolution” by the age of 29. But by 30 he had been forced out of the company he had created, a bitter wound he nursed for years as his fortune shrank and he fought to regain his early eminence.

Once out of the wilderness of exile, however, he brought forth a series of innovations — unveiling them with matchless showmanship — that quickly became ubiquitous. He turned the release of a new gadget into a cultural event, with Apple acolytes lining up like pilgrims at Lourdes.

Jobs was born in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 1955, to Joanne Carole Schieble and Syrian immigrant Abdulfattah Jandali, unmarried University of Wisconsin graduate students who put him up for adoption. He was adopted by Paul Jobs, a high school dropout who sold used cars and worked as a machinist, and his wife, Clara.

Jobs’ willfulness and chutzpah were evident early on. At 11, he decided he didn’t like his rowdy and chaotic middle school in Mountain View, Calif., and refused to go back. His family moved to a nearby town so he could attend another school.

When he was 12 or 13, Jobs would recall, he called the home of William Hewlett, one of the founders of Hewlett-Packard Co., to ask about parts he needed for a device he was building. For Jobs, it led to a humble summer job on a Hewlett-Packard assembly line, which he compared to being “in heaven.”

While attending Homestead High School in Cupertino, Calif., Jobs met Steve Wozniak, who was nearly five years older. A technical wizard who was in and out of college, Wozniak liked to make machines to show off to other tinkerers.

The two collaborated on a series of pranks and built and sold “blue boxes” — devices that enabled users to hijack phone lines and make free — and illegal — calls.

In 1972, Jobs dropped out of Reed College in Oregon after six months but lingered on campus, sleeping on friends’ dorm-room floors. He sat in on classes that interested him, such as calligraphy, which later inspired him to offer Macintosh users multiple fonts, a feature that would become a fixture of personal computing.

He worked sporadically as an electronics technician at video game maker Atari Inc., traveled to India on a quest for enlightenment and found guidance from a Zen Buddhist master.

Meanwhile, Wozniak had created a computer circuit board he was showing off to a group of Silicon Valley computer hobbyists. Jobs saw the device’s potential for broad appeal and persuaded Wozniak to leave his engineering job so they could design computers themselves.

In April 1976, the two launched Apple Computer out of Jobs’ parents’ garage, reproducing Wozniak’s circuit board as their first product.

They called it the Apple I and set the price at $666.66 because Wozniak liked repeating digits. In the following year came the Apple II, which carried a then-novel keyboard and color monitor and became the first popular home computer. When the company went public in 1980, the 25-year-old Jobs made an estimated $217 million.

Whether pitching a product or wooing a job candidate, Jobs liked to paint what he was selling as part of a revolution, an idea that reverberates in Silicon Valley start-ups today.

“He was by far the most articulate person our industry has ever had,” said Esther Dyson, a longtime technology observer and entrepreneur.

When he approached PepsiCo executive John Sculley to become chief executive of Apple in 1983, Jobs asked him, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want to change the world?”

At Apple, Jobs spearheaded the creation of a computer he called Lisa (also the name of his daughter born to a former girlfriend). The cocky, headstrong Jobs tangled with Lisa engineers over the direction of the computer, and Apple executives curtailed his role in the project. “It hurt a lot,” Jobs told a Playboy interviewer.

Jobs turned his attention to a small research effort called Macintosh, producing what he described as “the most insanely great computer in the world,” with a graphics-rich interface and a mouse that allowed users to navigate much more easily than they could with keyboard commands.

In 1984, Apple promoted the Macintosh with a television spot that aired during the Super Bowl. The minute-long commercial portrayed a sledgehammer-hurling runner heroically smashing the image of a sinister Big Brother figure, who was preaching to an assembly of gray drones.

The Orwellian tyrant, as Jobs portrayed it, was rival IBM Corp., then the dominant computer maker. In a 1985 Playboy interview, he cast IBM as the great enemy of innovation and described the battle as nothing less than light versus dark in the race for the future.

“If, for some reason, we make some giant mistakes and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years,” he said. “Once IBM gains control of a market sector, they almost always stop innovation. They prevent innovation from happening.”

Macintosh inaugurated an era of visual, clickable computing that remains the norm today, and its look, adopted by Microsoft for its Windows software, became a global standard. Still, although Jobs was a celebrity and wealthy beyond imagining, the Macintosh struggled early to capture sales and trailed the increasingly popular IBM PC.

As panic set in about the Macintosh’s problems, tensions flared between Jobs and Sculley, who, with the Apple board’s blessing, further reduced Jobs’ role. Jobs resigned in 1985, a 30-year-old tech king deposed from the palace he had built. As he saw it, he was fired.

“What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating,” Jobs later recalled in a Stanford University address. “I didn’t really know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down.

“I was a very public failure.”

He started NeXT Computing, which made computers for higher education and corporations. Technologists took to the computers — including British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who used them to create the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. But at $6,000, they were too expensive for consumers and failed to catch on.

In what many saw as a hobby, Jobs began dabbling in moviemaking technology in 1986, buying a small computer graphics division from filmmaker George Lucas‘ Lucasfilm Ltd. and renaming the company Pixar.

Around that time he met Laurene Powell, a Stanford business student, and they were married in 1991 by a Buddhist monk.

Jobs also found his biological mother, Joanne Simpson, and biological sister, Mona Simpson. He and his sister became close, and she dedicated her 1992 novel “Anywhere But Here” to him and their mother.

By then, he had established a relationship with his daughter Lisa. Jobs initially denied paternity and refused to pay child support. He eventually accepted her as his child, and she is now a New York writer.

NeXT and Pixar struggled financially, and he sank much of his personal fortune — upward of $70 million — into the two companies, according to Alan Deutschman’s “The Second Coming of Steve Jobs” (2000). Setbacks mounted as he slashed staff and scaled back both operations.

A 1993 Wall Street Journal article described “the decline of Mr. Jobs,” saying that his vision for NeXT resembled “a pipe dream” and portraying him as a once-great but increasingly irrelevant figure who might survive “as a niche player.”

The turnaround began in late 1995 when Pixar released “Toy Story,” the first feature-length computer-animated film, and it became a smash hit. Pixar went public one week later, making Jobs a billionaire, and has continued to produce box-office hits such as “Up,”“Finding Nemo” and two “Toy Story” sequels. Walt Disney Co. bought Pixar for $7.5 billion in 2006, making Jobs the entertainment giant’s largest shareholder.

In Jobs’ absence, Apple had been foundering as its share of the computer market shriveled. Seeking new software for the Macintosh, Apple decided on NeXT’s system, and bought the company for $377 million.

Jobs came back to Apple as a “special advisor” in 1996, but within a year he orchestrated the ouster of most of Apple’s board and had himself installed as chief executive. He reshaped a moribund company into a $380-billion technology titan, which this year temporarily surpassed Exxon Mobil Corp. as the world’s most valuable company.

The comeback was powered by a string of blockbuster products for which Jobs is largely credited — each of which had far-reaching effects in both culture and industry.

“To have your whole music library with you at all times is a quantum leap in listening to music,” he said in a 2001 presentation. “How do we possibly do this?” A moment later, he pulled the first iPod from his jeans pocket to show off the answer.

With the iPod’s release, Jobs lighted the way for the entertainment industry in the digital age. The iPod became Apple’s most popular product and soon captured about 70% of the market for digital music players.

Two years later, through deals that Jobs brokered with the recording industry, Apple opened its iTunes online store, which is now the country’s No. 1 music retailer.

With iTunes — which expanded to selling movies, TV shows, books and games — Jobs transformed Apple from a computer maker into one of the primary gatekeepers for the explosion of online media.

The iPhone, introduced in 2007, gave the cellphone a touch screen and a Web browser and enabled the growth of a booming industry of small mobile games and applications. It was then that Jobs dropped the word “Computer” from Apple’s name to make it simply Apple Inc.

Last year, Apple released its iPad tablet computer, a wireless reading, gaming and Web-surfing slate that has sold nearly 30 million units since its release.

In a testament to Jobs’ knack for picking transforming technologies, many industry analysts believe the iPad will hasten the demise of the laptop and desktop computers that Jobs himself once helped bring to prominence.

In his second term at Apple, Jobs’ instincts became the company’s internal compass. Unlike many chief executives, Jobs shunned focus groups and consumer surveys, personally driving Apple’s search for the next great idea.

“A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them,” Jobs once told BusinessWeek magazine.

He had a cult-like following, and he mesmerized audiences when unveiling Apple’s newest products, but no one was shown anything until Jobs said it was time. He kept a tight lid on information flowing out of the Cupertino company.

He was known as an imperious boss with little patience for weakness, one who launched blistering tirades that left subordinates fuming, or in tears.

“Steve tests you, challenges you, frightens you,” Todd Rulon-Miller, a friend and NeXT executive, said in “The Second Coming of Steve Jobs.” “He uses this as a tactic to get to the truth.”

Mercurial and brilliant, Jobs presented himself as an outsider even at the apex of American business, a convention-bucking visionary who was willing to wade into new industries to do battle with movie studios, record labels and cellphone giants. As a Buddhist and vegetarian following the principles of minimalism, he nearly always appeared in public in a black turtleneck, worn jeans and sneakers.

Apple’s “Think Different” ad campaign, with its parade of iconic pioneers and world-shaping figures from Einstein to Gandhi, relentlessly promoted the concept of triumphant individual genius. The implicit hero was Jobs himself, who embodied that ideal as much as any modern American.

Jobs was not afraid to blast rivals — chief among them software giant Microsoft, whose products he once described as “really third-rate” and aesthetically tasteless. The skewering later became more playful, with TV commercials portraying Microsoft users as frumpy and bookish and hipper Mac fans as stylish and quick-witted.

An intensely private person, Jobs rarely discussed his personal life and had little taste for the trappings of celebrity. As a philanthropist, his public profile paled beside that of Gates and Warren Buffett, and critics wondered why Jobs — who had an estimated net worth of $8.3 billion — didn’t give more money away, or if he did, why he kept it secret.

For years, Jobs’ health was an issue that wouldn’t go away. Although he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, he did not reveal his illness for nine months, according to a Fortune magazine report. He finally agreed to surgery in 2004.

After the surgery, Jobs announced that he had recovered. But in 2008, he underwent a liver transplant that was only later brought to light by the Wall Street Journal. As time went on, Jobs looked noticeably thinner in public appearances.

In a Stanford commencement speech in 2005, Jobs spoke at length about mortality and its value as a force against complacency.

“Death is very likely the best invention of life,” he said in the speech. “All pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

Michael Jackson slurred his speech after visits to Beverly Hills dermatologist Dr. Arnold Klein, trips that became “very regular” for the pop star in the weeks before his death, Jackson’s personal assistant testified Wednesday.

Defense lawyers for Dr. Conrad Murray, who is on trial for involuntary manslaughter in Jackson’s death, contend that Klein addicted the singer to Demerol during those visits, something Murray did not know about.

His withdrawal from that Demerol addiction was what kept Jackson awake despite Murray’s efforts to put him to sleep with sedatives the morning he died, the defense contends, arguing that Klein is at least partly responsible for Jackson’s death because of the Demerol.

Michael Amir Williams, who worked for Jackson the last two years of his life, was asked by defense lawyer Ed Chernoff whether he went to Klein’s office with Jackson.

“At a certain point, it was very regular,” Williams said.

Chernoff then asked Williams whether he’d ever heard Jackson talk slowly with slurred speech, as he did on an audio recording played in court Tuesday.

“Not that extreme, but I have heard him talk slow before,” Williams said.

“And when he left Dr. Klein’s office, have you observed him sometimes to talk slow?” Chernoff asked.

Sometimes, Williams replied, “he would talk slow like that. I never heard it that extreme, but I can definitely say he has come out, and he’s a little slower.”

“There were times he would go almost every day” to Klein’s office, and Jackson often appear intoxicated when he left, Muhammad testified.

Jackson once told Muhammad that his frequent trips to the dermatologist were for treatment for a skin disease.

“My doctors tell me that I have to go, so I go,” Muhammad said Jackson told him.

At the start of court proceedings Wednesday, Paul Gongaware, an executive with the company promoting Jackson’s comeback concerts, said he noticed that Jackson had “a little bit of a slower speech pattern, just a slight slur in the speech” after a visit with Klein.

Medical records show that Klein gave Jackson numerous shots of Demerol in the weeks before his death, Chernoff told jurors Tuesday.

Jackson’s inability to sleep the morning he died was “one of the insidious effects” of Demerol addiction withdrawal, Chernoff said. Since Murray did not know about the Demerol, he could not understand why Jackson was unable to fall asleep that morning, Chernoff said.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor previously ruled that while the jury can see some of the records of Klein’s treatment of Jackson, the doctor would not testify. Demerol was not found in Jackson’s body during the autopsy, which makes Klein’s testimony irrelevant, Pastor ruled.

Testimony from Williams and Muhammad included emotional details about the chaos in the Jackson home and at the hospital the day Jackson died.

Williams described Wednesday a frantic series of phone calls that started at 12:13 p.m. June 25, 2009, the day the pop icon died.

“Call me right away, please, call me right away,” Murray said in a voice message to Williams, which prosecutors played in court Wednesday.

“Get here right away; Mr. Jackson had a bad reaction,” Williams said Murray told him when he called him back.

Williams then ordered a security guard to rush to the upstairs bedroom where Murray was working to resuscitate Jackson.

Muhammad, one of those ordered upstairs, described seeing Jackson on a bed with his eyes open and his mouth “slightly opened” as Murray tried to revive him.

“Did he appear to be dead?” Deputy District Attorney David Walgren asked.

“Yes,” Muhammad replied.

Jackson’s two oldest children were standing just outside the room, watching in shock, Muhammad said.

“Paris was on the ground, balled up, crying. And Prince, he was standing there, he just had a real shocked, you know, slowly crying, type of shocked look on his face,” he said.

His description of Murray’s efforts to revive Jackson raised questions about Murray’s knowledge of how to perform CPR.

It was several minutes before the guard called for an ambulance.

Williams and Muhammad later rode with Jackson’s three children to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, following the ambulance that carried their father.

Jackson family members slowly arrived at the emergency room and joined the children, who were kept in a private room with their nanny while doctors tried to revive their father, Williams said.

“Dr. Murray and the doctors walked out, and they closed the curtain and said, ‘He’s dead,’ ” he testified.

Williams described what he called an odd request by Murray at the hospital for a ride back to Jackson’s home after he was pronounced dead.

Murray told Williams he needed to go back to retrieve “some cream” from Michael’s bedroom that Jackson “wouldn’t want the world to know about.”

The prosecution contends that Murray wanted to retrieve evidence of his medical misconduct that led to Jackson’s death.

A lawyer hired by concert promoter AEG to draw up the contract with Murray testified that Murray requested a cardiopulmonary resuscitation machine and money to hire a second doctor to help him care for Jackson.

The additional doctor and the CPR equipment were never provided, since the contract was not signed before Jackson died, attorney Kathy Jorrie testified.

She told the court that it was her understanding that Murray did not want the CPR unit or the additional doctor until he arrived in London with Jackson in July 2009 for the “This Is It” concerts.

“I asked Dr Murray, why do we need a CPR machine?” Jorrie testified.

Murray told her he needed it since “given (Jackson’s) age and the strenuous performance he would be putting on, that if something went wrong, he would have it,” she said.

The second doctor would be necessary because “if (Murray) was tired or unavailable, he wanted to make sure there was someone else to be of assistance” to Jackson.

AEG is being sued by Jackson’s mother, Katherine, based on her contention that the concert promoter hired and controlled Murray when he was caring for her son.

The prosecution contends that part of the negligence that makes Murray criminally liable for Jackson’s death is the lack of monitoring and CPR equipment on hand when Jackson died.

The trial began Tuesday with prosecutors playing a stunning audio recording of an apparently drugged Jackson slurring his words weeks before his death. Prosecutors also showed jurors a photo of Jackson’s corpse on a hospital gurney.

Jackson’s struggle to sleep between rehearsals for his “This Is It” comeback concerts is central to the prosecution and defense theories of how the entertainer died.

Walgren blamed Murray for Jackson’s death, saying he abandoned “all principles of medical care” when he used the surgical anesthetic propofol to put Jackson to sleep every night for more than two months.

The coroner ruled that Jackson’s death was the result of “acute propofol intoxication” in combination with sedatives.

Defense lawyer Chernoff contended that Jackson, desperate for sleep, caused his own death by taking a handful of sedatives and drinking propofol while the doctor was out of the room.

Chernoff told the jury that scientific evidence will show that, on the morning Jackson died, he swallowed a sedative without his doctor’s knowledge, “enough to put six of you to sleep, and he did this when Dr. Murray was not around.”

Jackson then ingested a dose of propofol on his own, creating “a perfect storm that killed him instantly,” Chernoff said.

“When Dr. Murray came into the room and found Michael Jackson, there was no CPR, no paramedic, no machine that was going to revive Michael Jackson,” he said.

“He died so rapidly, so instantly that he didn’t have time to close his eyes,” Chernoff said.

Chernoff told jurors that Murray was trying to wean Jackson off propofol when Jackson died.

Jackson’s death was “tragic, but the evidence will not show that Dr. Murray did it,” Chernoff told jurors.

The prosecution contends that Murray wanted to retrieve evidence of his medical misconduct that led to Jackson’s death.

Murray appeared to become emotional at one point as Chernoff presented his opening statement Tuesday morning, dabbing his eyes at times. Mostly, though, the defendant remained stoic through the proceedings.

If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Murray could spend four years in a California prison and lose his medical license.

Prosecutors played clips from Murray’s interview with investigators in which he described giving Jackson a final dose of the propofol after a long, restless night when the singer begged for help sleeping.

“The evidence in this case will show that Michael Jackson trusted his life to the medical skills of Conrad Murray, unequivocally that that misplaced trust had far too high a price to pay,” Walgren said. “That misplaced trust in the hands of Conrad Murray cost Michael Jackson his life.”

The most dramatic moment Tuesday came when jurors heard a May 10, 2009, recording, captured by Murray’s iPhone, of Jackson “highly under the influences of unknown agents,” as he talked about his planned comeback concert, according to Walgren.

“We have to be phenomenal,” Jackson said in a low voice, his speech slurred. “When people leave this show, when people leave my show, I want them to say, ‘I’ve never seen nothing like this in my life. Go. Go. I’ve never seen nothing like this. Go. It’s amazing. He’s the greatest entertainer in the world.’ I’m taking that money, a million children, children’s hospital, the biggest in the world, Michael Jackson’s Children’s Hospital.”

The tape, prosecutors say, is evidence that Murray knew about Jackson’s health problems weeks before his death.

Jurors also saw a video of the superstar rehearsing at the Staples Center in Los Angeles the night before he died. Jackson sang and danced to “Earth Song,” the last song he would rehearse on stage.

Prosecutors also presented a photo of Jackson’s lifeless body on a hospital gurney, about 12 hours later.

Producer Kenny Ortega, the first prosecution witness, said Tuesday he was jolted by Jackson’s appearance when the latter arrived at a rehearsal, on June 19, less than a week before he died.

“He appeared lost and a little incoherent,” Ortega said. “I did not feel he was well.” Ortega said he gave the pop singer food and wrapped him in a blanket to ward off chills. Jackson watched the rehearsal and did not participate that day.

Ortega was helping Jackson prepare for the “This Is It” world tour scheduled for London’s O2 Arena in autumn 2009.

In an e-mail early June 20, Ortega wrote, in part, to AEG President Randy Phillips, “My concern is, now that we’ve brought the Doctor in to the fold and have played the tough love, now or never card, is that the Artist may be unable to rise to the occasion due to real emotional stuff.”

The producer said Jackson appeared weak and fatigued on June 19.

“He had a terrible case of the chills, was trembling, rambling and obsessing,” he wrote. “Everything in me says he should be psychologically evaluated. If we have any chance at all to get him back in the light. It’s going to take a strong Therapist to (get) him through this as well as immediate physical nurturing. … Tonight I was feeding him, wrapping him in blankets to warm his chills, massaging his feet to calm him and calling his doctor.”

Jackson also appeared to be scared of losing the comeback tour.

“I believe that he really wants this … it would shatter him, break his heart if we pulled the plug,” Ortega wrote. “He’s terribly frightened it’s all going to go away. He asked me repeatedly tonight if I was going to leave him. He was practically begging for my confidence. It broke my heart. He was like a lost boy. There still may be a chance he can rise to the occasion if (we) get him the help he needs.”

AEG was the concert promoter.

Murray was unhappy that Jackson did not rehearse June 19 and told Ortega not to try to be the singer’s physician, Ortega testified, adding that Jackson insisted the next day he was capable of doing the rehearsals. Jackson was a full rehearsal participant in the days before he died, the producer said.

Jackson’s parents, brothers Tito, Jermaine and Randy, and sisters La Toya, Janet and Rebbie filled a row in the courtroom for a second day of the trial. Jackson’s three children are not expected to attend the trial or testify, according to a source close to their grandmother, Katherine Jackson.

He is charged with involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors say he caused the pop star’s death by administering a powerful anaesthetic, propofol.

Dr Murray has denied the charges.

It has taken more than two years for the trial to come to court. BBC News looks back over the events that led to the court case.

1983 Conrad Murray graduates from Texas Southern University in Houston with a degree in pre-medicine and biological sciences. He continues his medical studies in Nashville, Tennessee, before completing his training in California and the University of Arizona where he studies cardiology.

2000 Dr Murray opens a practice in Las Vegas, expanding with a second clinic in Houston in 2006. Serving both ends of the community, he also provides medical care to deprived areas.

Jackson was rehearsing for his 50-date London residency when he died

2006 Dr Murray meets Michael Jackson after treating one of his children in Las Vegas, and the pair strike up a friendship.

May, 2009 Dr Murray is hired by promoters AEG Live, at Jackson’s request, as the star’s personal physician ahead of his This Is It 50-date concert comeback in London. He is put on a salary of more than $150,000 (£96,000) a month.

25 June, 2009 Dr Murray finds Jackson unconscious in the bedroom of his Los Angeles mansion. Paramedics are called to the house while Dr Murray is performing CPR, according to a recording of the 911 emergency call. He travels with the singer in an ambulance to UCLA medical centre where Jackson later dies.

22 July, 2009 The doctor’s clinic in Houston is raided by officers from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) looking for evidence of manslaughter.

Footage of the raid on Dr Murray’s clinic

28 July, 2009 Dr Murray’s home is also raided. The search warrant allows “authorised investigators to look for medical records relating to Michael Jackson and all of his reported aliases”. A computer hard drive and mobile phones are seized, and a pharmacy in Las Vegas is later raided in connection with the case.

29 July, 2009 Court documents filed in Nevada show that Dr Murray is heavily in debt, owing more than $780,000 (£501,000) in judgements against him and his medical practice, outstanding mortgage payments on his house, child support and credit cards.

29 August, 2009 Jackson’s death is ruled a homicide by the Los Angeles coroner, who says the cause of death was “acute propofol intoxication”. A cocktail of drugs – also including sedatives Midazolam and Diazepam, the painkiller Lidocaine and the stimulant Ephedrine – were detected in his body.

21 November, 2009 Court documents reveal that Dr Murray bought five bottles of propofol in May 2009, at around the same time he was hired as Jackson’s physician. The papers show that the doctor spent $853 (£515) to purchase the drug in Las Vegas, and then transported it to Los Angeles. The DEA says he has not broken any laws in doing so.

Dr Murray appears in court in Los Angeles

8 February, 2010 Dr Murray is charged with involuntary manslaughter. He pleads not guilty and is released on $75,000 (£48,000) bail. The judge says he can continue to practice medicine, but bans him from administering anaesthetic agents, “specifically propofol”.

4 January, 2011 Preliminary hearings begin. Prosecutors allege that Dr Murray “hid drugs” before calling paramedics on the day Jackson died. They also state that he did not perform CPR properly and omitted to tell paramedics that he had given Jackson propofol.

30 August, 2011 Michael Jackson’s dermatologist is barred from giving evidence at the trial. Dr Murray’s lawyers had planned to argue that Arnold Klein had administered the singer with painkillers for “no valid reason” but prosecutors said they were attempting to transfer responsibility for his death away from Dr Murray. Testimony from five other doctors who treated Jackson is also disallowed.

24 September, 2011 The jury is finalised. Half of the chosen panelists are Caucasian, five are Hispanic and one is African-American. The jurors have a wide range of professions, including a bus driver, paralegal and a bookseller.

27 September, 2011 Opening arguments take place in the televised trial, expected to last up to five weeks before the jury retires. Prosecutors say Dr Murray acted with “gross negligence” and gave Jackson a lethal dose of propofol. The defence claim Jackson administered too much of the sleeping aid himself.

how he obtains/loses his heart’s desire = CY = 37 = Singer. Musicians. Dad. Father. So Conrad’s undoing could be being singer and musician Michael Jackson’s father Joe Jackson wanting to see Conrad face the music.

34 month + 3 (3rd of the month on Monday October 3rd, 2011) = 37 = his personal day = singer and musician Michael Jackson’s father Joe Jackson wanting to see Conrad face the music.

[When his number (37 (how he obtains/loses his heart’s desire)) comes up, that’s when he gets to live/experience what he is here to live/experience. So this was his day.

Monday October 3rd, 2011 was potentially significant for Conrad Murray because both of his numbers came up on this day. It was his 34 (primary challenge) month and his 37 (how he obtains/loses his heart’s desire) day.]

34 month + 5 (5th of the month on Wednesday October 5th, 2011) = 39 = his personal day = The story is only half told when only one side tells it. Half-truths.

[When his number (39 (his life lesson number)) comes up, that’s when he gets to live/experience what he is here to live/experience. So this is HIS day.

Wednesday October 5th, 2011 is potentially significant for Conrad Murray because both of his numbers will come up on this day. It is his 34 (primary challenge) month and his 39 (his life lesson number) day.]

7 + 26 +1+9+2+9 = 54 = his life lesson = Asking questions. Things are not as they appear. Your guess is as good as mine. Who knows?

————————————————————————————–

July 26th, 1929

July 26th

7 + 26 +2+0+1+1 = 37 = his personal year (from July 26th, 2011 to July 25th, 2012) = Conrad’s undoing could be being singer and musician Michael Jackson’s father Joe Jackson wanting to see Conrad face the music.

After nearly four years behind bars, an Italian jury has overturned Knox’s conviction for the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher, setting the stage for her an emotional homecoming to Knox’s native Seattle.

The courtroom erupted with cries of joy as the presiding judge read the verdict after a long day of deliberations, wrapping up an appeals trial that lasted nearly a year.

The news that Amanda would go free set off a frenzy among the more than 400 accredited journalists, who set off immediately for Capanne prison, to chronicle her release.

The long-awaited and controversial decision is an embarrassing judicial slapdown of the work of the forensic investigators in Italy, a country struggling to bring about necessary reforms in its justice system.

And it is almost certain that the acquittal will trigger a series of side investigations to remedy the failures of the system that locked up Knox unjustly on shaky evidence.

While Knox’s legal team presented much more cohesive defense strategy, the key turning point in her bizarre appeal was having the court-appointed independent expert review of two pieces of evidence go her way.

The experts delivered a scathing 145-page report criticizing Italian forensic police for dozens of errors in crime scene investigation and evidence handling. The experts cast serious doubt on the admissibility of DNA results found on the butcher knife believed to be the murder weapon (police said it had Knox’s DNA on the handle and Kercher’s DNA on the blade), and a bra clasp of Kercher’s. The bra clasp supposedly contained the DNA of Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s former boyfriend and codefendant.

No detail of Knox’s defense was overlooked. Even her image was successfully rebuilt — gone were the Beatles hoodies and T-shirts, traded in for sober and conservative court-appropriate attire. Her defense team’s closing arguments were delivered smoothly, convincingly and with heartfelt warmth that the jury could feel.

But in the end, it was the persistent, meticulous effort to raise questions about every single piece of evidence that provided the jury with exactly what Amanda Knox needed: Reasonable Doubt.

In a surprising decision, the verdict was broadcast live with all cameras trained on Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito, their families and of course the presiding judge, a side judge and six jurors, five of them women. One reporter from each news organization was allowed in the courtroom or press room in order to accommodate all. A number of the networks and larger news agency came with multiple-person teams and had to choose just one representative to hear the news first.

The scene outside the courthouse Monday evening was unlike anything Perugia had ever seen, a surreal atmosphere that eclipsing even the wild mass of people who had gathered for the first verdict in December 2009, which came after a sensational nine-month trial, two years after the original murder, in November 2007, just months after both Knox and Kercher first arrived for study abroad programs in this bucolic hilltop city of Umbria.

Kercher’s body, with multiple stab wounds and more than 40 lesions all together, was found in a pool of blood on the floor of her own bedroom in Via Della Pergola 7, the morning of Nov. 2, 2007. A duvet had been pulled up over her bloodied, partially naked body. Four days later, Knox and Sollecito were arrested after long night of questioning that ended when Knox broke down and implicated a Congolese pub owner, Patrick Lumumba, in the crime. She had no lawyer present, and her defense attorneys have maintained she was coerced. In December 2009, Knox and Sollecito were convicted of murder and other related charges and sentenced to 26 and 25 years, respectively.

The first trial and Knox’s appeal has fascinated audiences worldwide. Knox, a Seattle native, now 24, and Raffaele Sollecito, the Italian computer engineering student from Bari who she was dating at the time, were convicted in December 2009 of murdering Knox’s British roommate Meredith Kercher in a drug-fueled sexual assault.

Kercher’s mother, Arline, sister, Stephanie, and brother, Lyle, were in the courtroom for the verdict and said they will hold a hold conference Tuesday and give their reaction to the verdict. Earlier in the day, they recalled fondly their daughter and sister, wiping away tears as they described what a loving person she was and how fond as of Perugia, where she had come on an exchange from the University of Leeds.

Knox’s friends and family have been faithfully pressing the case for the release of their daughter, who has spent four difficult years both under the spotlight and behind bars.

“We won’t rest until we can bring her home,” Curt Knox told the BBC early Monday.

The case has had an intense international media following, and inspired a number of books and even movies. In the U.S., the Italian judicial system has come under harsh criticism, while many in Europe have defended the process that convicted Knox.

Knox’s position improved significantly during her appeal, especially after an independent review of the evidence harshly criticized two key pieces of DNA evidence the prosecution has presented.

The review raised doubt about the admissibility of Sollecito’s DNA on Kercher’s bra clasp, as well as the trace amount of Kercher’s DNA allegedly found on the kitchen knife the prosecution claimed was the murder weapon. The prosecution stood by the work of the forensic police, however, accusing the experts of “scientific falsification” saying no contamination had been proven and noting that not all experts agree on the amount of DNA that is acceptable. In the last hearings before the appeals jury, prosecutors took pains to point out a number of other items of circumstantial evidence that they felt proved her involvement.

The defense argued she was a suspect from the get-go and then became the victim of a series of investigative errors. “This investigation was a sailboat going off in one direction, unable to change its route,” Carlo Dalla Vedova told the court.

On Monday, Knox herself gave a heartfelt but determined plea to win her freedom in a statement before deliberations began.

When a nervous Knox stood to address the court, she seemed close to losing her composure. A dropped pin could have been heard in the courtroom.

Her lawyer reached over and squeezed her hand. The judge said she could sit if she preferred, but she took a deep breath and began her remarks. She gained confidence as she addressed jurors for about 10 minutes, telling them of her ordeal, describing how her faith in the authorities had been betrayed, and pleading that they right a judicial wrong.

She has suffered during four years of unjust incarceration, Knox said, insisting she spent the night of Nov. 1, 2007 with her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito when her British flatmate, Meredith Kercher, was killed, an event she said shocked and scared her.

“She had her bedroom next to mine. She was killed in our house. If I had been there that night, I would be dead, like her,” Knox said, her voice quivering at moments. “But I was not there. I was with Raffaele. Thank God he was there. I didn’t have anyone. He was everything to me in that moment.”

She may have been a little disorderly and carefree, but had a good relationship with her roommates, including Meredith, she said, who often worried about her when she went to work at night. Knox said she had been misunderstood over the course of the last four years and insisted she had nothing to do with Kercher’s murder.

“I did not kill. I did not rape. I did not steal. I was not there. I was not present at this crime.”

She then said she had no intention of trying to escape from the truth, as prosecutors had implied in the newspapers over the weekend.

“I will not flee the truth. I insist on the truth,” she said. “Our innocence is real and deserves to be recognized.”

Though less convincing, Raffaele Sollecito also addressed the court, saying how much he had suffered spending 20 hours a day in a 2-by-3 meter cell for more than 1,400 days. At the end of his remarks he took off the “Free Amanda and Raffaele” bracelet he always wears, saying it was a “gift” to the court. He talked of all that it symbolized for him, calling it “a concentrate of various emotions, a desire for justice and the light in this dark tunnel.” He urged the jury to acquit, saying he and Amanda deserve a new, hopeful future.

As the morning’s court statements came to an end, presiding Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman warned the court that “this is not a soccer match” and urged all parties to respect the court’s decision and remain silent when the verdict is read.

her path of destiny = 35 = Not giving up. Hanging in there. Been through hell and back.

An astrological look at the Amanda Knox case

Among thousands of news sources covering the tragedy and subsequent trial, Wikipedia has some of the tragic details of the murder of Meredith Kercher for which Seattle native Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted in Italy on Dec 5, 2009 “shortly after midnight,” say news reports this evening in the US (Dec 4.)

One of the more time consuming branches of Astrology is Forensic Astrology and I seldom have a chance to spend the several hours required to get very far with a particular case – and I don’t today, but I will give some of the main astrological factors as I see them.

For having the police estimate that Ms. Kercher was brutally murdered between 8:30 and 11:00 pm (Nov 1, 2007, Perugia, Italy) makes a brief study of the related charts intriguing, to see which planet/s were rising, 8th house ruler/s and aspects, aspects to the chart-ruler/s, planets at chart angles (ASC/DESC and MC/IC), the last lunation (here a Full Moon 2Tau23 on Oct 26, 2007) and many other chart factors which cannot be covered here.

The Pre-Natal Eclipse of the crime is the Sept 11, 2007 Solar Eclipse @ 18Vir24 in the 9 New South Series with flavors of: long-term worries surface having to do with loved ones, paperwork, communication, or health; responsibilities relating to paperwork come home to roost; news has a sense of destiny or fatedness about it. (Brady’s ‘Predictive Astrology.)

(Sun/Moon as mentioned above has a fated quality, too, and relates to male-female principles.)

Plus, you know that Sabian Symbols can give interesting facets of an event’s actors (planets), methods (signs), and places of action (houses) – but there’s no time for them all now. Still, here are some factors I discovered. “Real” forensic astrologers may feel free to correct my assumptions and comments – and I hope they will; or perhaps will add a link to a different analysis, if available.

Of course, having one precise time of an event is preferrable, but here I’m looking at charts for the 8:30 pm to 11:00 pm CET time frame for Perugia, Italy, Nov 1, 2007.

Meredith Kercher was born in Feb, 1986, London, but I’ve not found her exact birthdate. Protecting her birth data may be a family priority and if so, I certainly don’t fault them.

Her Chiron is in 9th house @ 24Gem20; Jupiter 26Ari58 in 8th h, Neptune 6Cap21 Rx in 4th h, Pluto 7Sco10 Rx in 2nd house. Of course, these house positions are based on a Noon natal chart; Noon’s ASC 29Vir10 with SN rising @ 6Lib05; Mc 28Gem58/Ic 28Sag58. Transiting transformer Pluto was conjunct this Ic on Nov 1, 2007.

The Chart for Nov 1, 2007:

At 8:30 pm, ASC 8Can28 brings up Ms. Knox’s natal Mercury 9Can05 Rx, along with transit Mars 11Can14. With Cancer being ruled by the Moon, Mars in Cancer can be touchy and temperamental – plus, Mars was out-of-bounds (OOBs) and doing as he pleased without interference.

This is Mars-to-Mercury transit for Ms. Knox indicates a period when mental energies are sizzling and thoughts are quickly turned into actions; lots of ideas and info are in the environment and life’s tempo increases to possibly a chaotic level; impatience, verbal combat and aggression are likely, and injuries to head, face, or hands are possible.

Nov 1, 2007′s Sun was a Sun-to-Pluto transit for her as well, a time when one has an urge to get to the bottom of motivations; if one is strong-willed, the trait is increased under this transit; use of power, self-control or its lack, and aggression become issues; circumstances can provoke resentment of manipulations by others who have more power or control.

Although I’m considering mainly the 8:30 pm chart (Hour of Mars) for Nov 1, 2007, Perugia, Italy, I must note that the chart for 11:00 pm (Hour of Venus; Venus 22Vir41) has the difficult, sometimes abusive, ‘destructive energy’ of the Mars/Saturn midpoint on ASC 9Leo21…as always with midpoints ‘any, all, or none’ may apply:

Mars/Saturn = ASC: obstacles caused by others; separation; discipline or restraint brought to activities; military people or athletes; struggling for every step of advancement; a health threat.

Mars/Sat = Moon: separation or death of a female; weakness of will; feelings about losing something; fit of depression; anger over restrictions imposed by home or family.

This indicator doesn’t give an exact time of death, however, for forensic officials have said that Ms. Kercher did not die immediately from her wounds. One wishes she had suffered less.

Besides rising Mars being angular at 8:30 pm, there’s Uranus 14Pis59 Rx at Mc. This puts Uranus/Mc within orb of an often difficult Fixed Star, Achernar, keywords: ‘crisis; risk of rapid endings’; Achernar relates to the ‘end of the river’ which may be viewed in some cases as an end-of-life signature.

So there’s malefic Mars, OOBs and testy in Cancer, on an angle, with sudden upsets/crises-bringing Uranus angular, too:

Mars square Uranus indicates someone with a strong sex drive who prefers to be free to exploit themselves without hesitation or restraint; there’s an impatient temper that doesn’t like postponing activities or having deires challenged by others.

A window was broken in the Kercher’s room which the police say was done to ‘suggest’ a break-in and robbery. With Uranus angular in murky Pisces square Mars rising, I can’t feel absolutely certain that a Mars-Uranus person didn’t suddenly appear, can you? Or, the culprit was in the apartment already from being allowed in the front door (Mars/ASC.)

Uranus in Pisces has a ‘deception toward friends’ quality and a mystical signature and may relate to the police report that violent comic books were found in Sollecito’s apartment. And they say that Meredith Kercher attended Oct 31 Halloween festivities dressed as a vampire. Some connections between the crime and scenarios found in said comic books have been implied by police. I’ve always thought that Dressing as a vampire is one thing – harming others As If you’re a vampire is illusionary madness.

(And I doubt that the huge success of the Twilight films encourages impressionable young folk to separate real from fantasy. I call it, making one’s fortune bwo of the lowest common denominator. It’s the ones watching such entertainments over and over who aren’t emotionally or mentally stable that concern me most. Still, the films weren’t in theaters in Oct/Nov 2007 but I suppose the books were available.)

Now the position of Nov 1′s Mercury 23Lib22s Rx relates to Mercury’s ongoing retrograde period in progress during the prior lunation, the Full Moon of Oct 26, 2007 @ 2Tau23, 6:51:30 am CEDT; Sun Hour; Mars was OOBs then, too. Mercury 27Lib32 Rx is rising in the Full Moon chart with Sun 2Sco23. And Mars 9Can50 is even closer in orb to the Nov 1 ASC 8Can28, as noted for 8:30 pm.

In fact, backing up a little, vigorous Mars (a male) and the Moon (a female) met up @ 10Can51 at 9:10 CEDT on Oct 30, 2007 with ’11Can’ being the “A Clown Making Grimaces” degree; 5th cusp of Romance and Risk-Taking = 6Sco59 conjunct asteroid Hidalgo, one of the ‘power’ asteroids who ‘expects to be in control’; spidery Arachne is conjunct Venus, and Amanda Knox’s natal Venus 3Can38 is conjunct the ASC of the Moon/Mars hook-up. Somehow I feel the Moon/Mars conj relates to the Halloween festivities of the next evening and on to the events of Nov 1; perhaps I’m wrong, but there it is.

Another note on the Nov 1 8:30 pm chart: Jupiter, often active at times of death, is in a wide conj with manipulator Pluto 27Sag05, Jupiter 19Sag46. Between them at 8:30 pm is the Part of Death 27Sag42, another possible indicator of a money involvement since Jupiter/Pluto signifies wealth, bankers, the underworld, or even a wealthy father. And Jupiter is in his own sign of Sagittarius, a strong signature of long-distance travel.

An interesting factor on Nov 1, 2007 is the position of the Mars/Neptune midpoint @ 00Tau15. This is considered by some to be a degree of violence (aka, ‘Hitler’s trigger’ degree, position of his natal Sun, yet I don’t mean to suggest Hitler is involved – violence is. The degree of the 2Tau23 Full Moon is nearby, too.)

Mars (male; sex; attacks; sharp objects) with Neptune (deceit; drugs; theft) in Taurus, the sign ruling the Throat; Ms. Kercher’s windpipe was crushed and her throat slit so I feel Mars/Neptune in Taurus is a significant signature of the culprit/s. And Mars/Neptune can also relate to sexual games and fantasies.

“Someone Else Was in the Apartment” – Was It Rudy?

Another participant who’s already in prison for this crime is Rudy Guede, who’s been described as a ‘street hustler’ and I read last evening that his attorney described him as a “fighter” – feisty Mars is often termed a ‘fighter’ or ‘street fighter’ so did OOBs Mars in Cancer make his home in the streets?

The Lady on Trial:

Amanda Knox’s natal square between Mars and Pluto may be an apt if disagreeable place to end my surmises. As I said, please feel free to add your thoughtful views, if you wish. (Be civil please, or your comment won’t be published!)

Now the following Mars/Pluto info may not seem to describe the angel-faced young lady, as some have called her. But astrological Pluto, by his very nature, indicates deeply unconscious or underground facets of our personalities, as Psychological Astrology informs us. And natal Pluto resonates very strongly with the sign of Scorpio in anyone’s personality. Some extreme possibilities are:

Mars SQ Pluto: an overly forceful nature; aggressive in pursuing desires; a do-or-die attitude; using force to gain one’s ends; courage; a violent temper; egotism; criminal tendencies; brutality; can be aggressive in sexual relationships or abusive; may become dictatorial with a ‘might makes right’ attitude; reckless and foolish; attracted to violet circumstances.

Add to her natal square of these two powerful planets, the transiting Mars-quindecile-Pluto which was in effect on Nov 1, 2007, along with sex and drugs, and we may have a picture of a romantic young girl on her own in a foreign country, whose Mars/Pluto SQ was negatively influenced by the tr Mars/Pluto quindecile (165 degr), an unconsciously operating aspect of obsession and compulsion:

Mars QD Pluto: may be driven toward power, domination, greed, and possessiveness; may demonstrate sexual dominance and aggressiveness; may be ruthless and manipulative to gain power and control; benefit comes through the power of taking physical action. (paraphrasing from ‘Quindecile’ by Ricki Reeves.)

Well, as you can tell, this is a complex situation of two years’ duration so the Astrology describing it must be complex as well.

Yet I don’t mean to suggest that I agree with the verdict reached by the Italian jury and judges who were, I believe, swayed unfairly (and perhaps politically?) by the Italian press when it came to Amanda Knox, whose activities of Nov 1, 2007 may never be fully revealed or understood. Trial by press has been a problem in the US, too, and should not be allowed to tip the scales of any court yet they so often do. And it wasn’t 12 jurors of their peers who convicted Knox and Sollecito – I believe the vote was 5 to 4…a pretty shabby way of doing things in a court of law, imo.

And so with a sense of grief for their loss, I send my heartfelt condolences to the Kercher, Knox, and other families involved in this sad case. For if a travesty of justice was made with the Knox or Solliceto guilty verdicts, I pray they will find the strength to fight for the freedom of their loved ones.